Johnson: Love spreads good will when wrapping gifts

Last week I talked about stepping outside my comfort zone and finding freedom and fun in something as simple as rocking out to karaoke.

This week I'm concentrating on a skill I'm not so good at ? wrapping Christmas presents.

Every gift I give normally looks like it came out of a Dumpster, it's so poorly wrapped. I would use a gift-wrapping service, but after blowing my budget yet again this year on gifts, there's little room to spare for extravagances such as that.

So after a last-minute shop-a-thon a bit too close to Christmas for my comfort, I spent some time trying (key word here) to wrap the gifts while my daughter took a fortuitous nap.

I settled into a Zen-like state and took the gifts, one by one, carefully lining them up and deciding how I was going to go about making these presents look more suitable.

Every gift was as special as the person who would be receiving it, I thought, and as I wrapped, I was able to think about how much joy it would bring to each of them. As I continued to work, the joy of the Christmas season finally started growing on me. I realized it's not so important for the presents to be perfect, which is a lot like trying to live a healthier life. You're not trying for perfection, you're just trying to do as well as you can, every day.

I took my time, and even though there were a few crooked edges and bad tape jobs, I got the task accomplished, and not a moment too soon. Like clockwork, the baby was up and ready to play as soon as the last gift was placed under the tree.

Then I watched with horror as she tore through the gifts carefully placed under the tree and ruined my masterwork, like Godzilla attacking Japan. She was having so much fun, I couldn't bear to tear her away from her paper tearing. So I just laughed and put more wrapping paper on my last-last-minute Christmas shopping list.

After all, practice makes perfect, they say, and in this case, I definitely need the practice.